Richard Kelliher charged a Japanese machine gun post twice, alone, in the New Guinea fighting around Lae, the very campaign we covered today, and then went back a third time into the fire to rescue his wounded section leader. He was an Irish-born Australian who had once been in trouble in the army, and he came out of that day with the Victoria Cross.
Kelliher was fighting with the Australians in the drive on Lae in September 1943, part of the same operation as the Nadzab airborne landing. On the 13th, near a place called Heath's Plantation, his platoon was advancing when it was suddenly cut down by heavy fire from a concealed Japanese machine gun post, killing and wounding several men and pinning the rest.
Without waiting for any order, Kelliher acted. He dashed forward toward the enemy post and hurled two grenades into it, killing some of the crew, but not all, and the gun was still dangerous. So he ran back to his section, grabbed a Bren gun, and charged forward again, this time closing to within about 30 yards of the post and pouring accurate fire into it until he had completely silenced it, killing the rest of the crew. Two lone charges into a machine gun, and he had taken it out.
But he was not finished. His section leader lay wounded out in the open, in front of the position, still under fire from another Japanese post nearby. Kelliher asked permission to go out again, and then went forward a third time into the danger, reached his wounded leader, and carried him back to safety.
They gave Richard Kelliher the Victoria Cross. After the war he suffered for years from the malaria he had caught in the jungle, but he was chosen to represent Australia at the great victory parade in London in 1946, where he received his medal from the King. The Irishman turned Australian digger who took a machine gun apart single-handed in the New Guinea jungle and then went back for his mate.